Through dying
by planet p
Summary: AU; she's through dying!


**Through dying** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

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When she reflected on the girl that she'd been, and the woman that she was, Miss Parker decided, reasonably, that it had been a combination of factors that had induced the stark change that had so shocked Jarod, her fleeting childhood friend, and escaped Center Pretender, whom she had been tasked with tracking down, along with Sydney and Broots.

She'd have to say, that at the age of ten, the shooting of her mother right in front of her had had a negative effect. On the one hand, it had had a hardening effect, and on the other hand, it had had an implosion effect, in which she'd fought hard not to break down at the collapse and the destruction of every surety her young life had ever afforded her.

Her mother was dead, she was shipped off to Canada via Express Air, (with no way of 'talking' to Sydney, as he had offered, if she so much as had wanted to!).

The staff and students at the private all-girl boarding school running classes for seventh grade through to university level studies were far from all the brochure had promised, excepting a _single_ teacher named Mandy Alice, who was supportive and not entirely awful, and whom Miss Parker had had an instantly comfortable feeling with, as though they'd met before and had been good friends. Still, she did not make friends.

In fact, it was not until Miss Parker had began, and was well on her way into, her Law Degree, at the age of 19, that she was assigned a roommate in the form of a 12-year-old named Mimi, that she made her first friend after her mother's death, and, a couple of years later, met a handsome, young airman whom she was interested romantically in, and whom was reciprocally interested in her.

She was going to marry Sam, she knew. They were going to have three children, and the first, if it was a boy, would be named D'Artagnan, and if it was a girl, Grace. Baby was already well on the way, though Miss Parker had yet to build up the courage to tell handsome Sam.

And when Mimi had children, their kids would be best friends, just like they were. They'd decided on the names of their firstborns together, one evening after field hockey.

Then everything had changed. One night, Mimi had woken her and began saying all sort of crazy, off-the-planet things, like how they were being manipulated against their will (without them even knowing about it, of course), except, Mimi said, for her, because of what she was.

The innocent, stuck-up, posh boarding school that they'd thought they attended, didn't really exist, in fact, it existed merely as an exterior, at least, for them, when in reality it was a training ground for soldiers and operatives.

Not for everyone, she suspected, but, certainly, for them. They were special because of something inside them, too small to see, but something inside their genes, something that made them valuable, and something that made the people want to turn them into special soldiers.

And they had been.

Miss Parker still remembered, with clarity (now), the way Mimi had shook then, and, maybe, she'd been shaking all along, unable to stop, and all over her body, as though terribly, terribly, inconsolably cold. It hurt to remember that she'd thought her friend a liar then, that she hadn't offered a comforting arm, or even a single reassurance.

She'd been the elder of the two, and she'd thought her friend was a _lair_, and she'd _hated_ her!

Later, she came to think of Mimi like a daughter, not just a friend. But that was after the accident, after her one chance at becoming a mother had been cruelly taken from her – forever.

They'd killed people, Mimi told her. They'd both killed people. They'd done it together, because they were a team. That's why they'd put them together, so that they would acclimate to each other's presence.

And they'd changed her, inside, inside the other inside, inside her mind, or soul, they'd created someone else, someone capable of killing, capable of handling weapons and murdering other human beings. But they hadn't been able to change _her_, because of what she was. They were special, both of them, but in different ways. She'd fought it, but Miss Parker had had no way of fighting it. Mimi had had to do that for her.

She told her that they needed to get away, run away, that they should steal a car, and get away, just get away.

Miss Parker pressed her with questions. What did she mean changed? Who'd changed them? She didn't remember killing anyone? Where were the signs of physical trauma? Bruises or scratches from falls, cuts? Rashes, or grazes, scrapes?

She was named Molly, the other her, Mimi told her. Mandy Alice was their handler, their trainer, in a way, but Mandy Alice only worked for the people who'd decided on the change and made it happen, she hadn't changed them, she'd only trained them so that they didn't end up dead, made them battle ready. The people were a part of a group – bigger or smaller, she didn't know – called T-Corp, and it was T-Corp who'd picked them for duty. Molly was an alternate personality, which was why she didn't remember the actual killing now, when she was not Molly. The trauma had been taken away, mended, by the Healers.

Maybe it was the mention of Healers that had done it, more than the lingering feeling that she'd known Mandy Alice from another time, or that she, too, was somehow special (like Jarod, and Angelo). Or maybe it was Mimi herself.

But she believed her.

She knew it was true.

They had to get out.

And then the accident had happened – and all because of some stupid ice, invisible to the two girls in the stolen vehicle, but deadly underneath the car, to the tyres on the road, which lost traction and swerved desperately, then rammed headlong into the side of the road and a forest of impossibly tall (and _hard_) pine trees.

Afterward, Miss Parker had told herself that it'd just been a story, made up by a bored young woman, just years out of her teens, and spurned on by her mischievous wrong-side-of-the-tracks 15-year-old best friend. But that'd been Mimi's suggestion, Mimi's power (magic). She'd wanted her to forget, wanted her to be okay, and it'd worked. No more nightmares, no more killings, no more monsters.

And there'd been monsters! Mandy Alice, herself, had been one of them. She'd even defended her from a visiting male monster (Reaper) who'd taken an unwanted interest in her.

For a long time, even after the realisation that it'd all been true, Miss Parker didn't want to deal with it. Her father had sent her away to another university. The accident had cost her, not only her unborn baby, but the chance of ever becoming a mother again. She hadn't wanted to dwell on it – she'd killed her best friend, she'd been the one _driving_, she should have known, she should have Goddamn _known_ – and her father had wanted her, as ever, looking out for her best interest, to forget the whole unpleasant business. _Life goes on._

And it did.

She made new friends, new boyfriends (forgot about Sam, he'd think she was dead, he was safer that way), and moved on with her personal life and career. She'd become a lawyer, was seeing several pricey therapists, several good-looking men, and owned an _expensive_ car, and rented a _great_ apartment.

And then the monsters had come for her in her sleep! They'd woken her from her unreal, comfortable life, and plunged her into her worst nightmare!

Then one of her psychiatrists had discovered that she suffered from a multiple personality disorder (induced, she concluded, from the trauma of her mother's passing at such an early, impressionable age, and the subsequent alienation by her only surviving relative and caregiver, her father; further spurned on, in possibility, also, by the death of her adopted sister, Faith). Miss Parker didn't object, though she knew the case to be otherwise. She didn't raise alarms; she kept them inside.

Molly was physically, psychological and emotionally violent, but also streetwise and attractive. There was something indescribable about her attractiveness, the psychiatrist told her, almost as though it was alive, and apart of her physical body, yet it was very much non-psychical in aspect and linked to her subconscious.

The key, in managing Molly, would be to integrate the two personalities, and, in the long run, it wouldn't be like either her or Molly losing, it'd be like both of them gaining something, becoming more whole. It was a hard decision, but one she absolutely had to make.

So she changed. Again.

And she woke up in the middle of the night, _every night_, with nightmares of killing and maiming and the other assorted horrors Molly had committed and had had committed to her. The only happy resolution to her nightmares was that Mimi always, always saved her, in the end. She always had, right up until the end. (Stake driven through her heart, but still smiling: _You're free._ _We won._)

She'd lain awake, remembering how Mimi had come to her in that pseudo-hospital bed, when she'd hurt – _God_ had she _hurt_! – and whispered to her that it'd all be fine, that it was just a bad dream, a silly dream, dreamed up by two silly schoolgirls, bored, and looking for something more real in their lives, not realising, in their childishness/foolishness that real also meant that it could hurt, badly.

But Mimi had been dead then – staked – and it'd just been her imagination, or, she sometimes thought, Mimi's spirit. Like Faith's after her.

The dream had been so nice, wonderful, but it'd had to become real again – she couldn't live in dreams her whole life – and, she thought, she'd never have traded the pain away for anything because it was how she knew she'd been loved by Mimi, it was how she'd remembered her best friend, who'd been with her, through it all, right up 'til the end.

And she _had lived_! By God, she had lived!

She hadn't lived through all that to dream her life away! Mimi hadn't died so that she could live a happy, oblivious life! She'd died so that her best friend could live – in complete knowledge of her past actions – and become someone else, a better someone else! And she would do that, for Mimi, however hard it was, whatever it took! Because Molly knew how to handle whatever it took! And she could take it, and throw it back, just as hard, and just as fast, and, by God, just as good!

She would live!

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_I've read other stories about Miss Parker changing from the little girl who famously gave Jarod his 'first kiss' to the, equally as famous, Ice Queen, and this is my own little version of events._

_Thanks for reading!_


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